


A Turning Point

by SunnyD_lite



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-31
Updated: 2010-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally, she'd been offered a chance to be grown up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> TamingtheMuse Prompt: The Great Unwashed  
> A/N: Thanks to Agilebrit for her fly-by betaing skills and to bigsciencybrain for hand holding and hearing about all the plot bunnies that didn't make it to the page. First thought was Simon, then William/Spike, then Xander turned up with something to say. But, when I buckled down...Dawn needed to talk. Enjoy! Someday I'll find a plotty muse. *shakes head*  
> Set during Seeing Red

Dawn couldn't believe it. Especially after that talk about Buffy and Spike. She thought that her sister saw her differently, as a full member of the team and not just "Dawnie". Finally, she'd been offered a chance to be grown up and help out and then Buffy sucker punched her with one of the worst monsters around. She'd have to disagree with her English teacher: the great unwashed weren't Steinbeck's pilgrims, but the basement after the chaos of the last few weeks, months...well ages.

It's just she never remembered the Scoobies' exciting tales of laundry duty.

Black, colored, whites, bloodstained. Black, colored, ripped--maybe that look was coming back into fashion? They really couldn't expect her to, like, fix things too, could they?

She didn't even blink anymore about hanging in the basement. It's not like she hadn't been tied up bunches of time. That time, it had just been odd to wake up in familiar surroundings. At least there hadn't been any un-dead kitties, just a demon and crazy!Buffy. Actually, it had been kinda homey.

Chaos. She tried to sort through the last few months, like she was sorting the laundry. Was there a stain remover strong enough to obliterate the darkness they'd survived? The demon attack the night Buffy came back to them. Darkness and light twisted together. And was it a Summers rule that they only dated vampires? It wasn't like she was stupid; she'd hung out with Spike enough to know that Halloween was a night in for the ghosts and ghoulies. That's why she'd agreed with Janice to pull the parent double dodge.

She'd really been surprised when they noticed that she was heading out. From being the focus of Buffy's attention last year to not even hitting her radar was hard. Hadn't Buffy missed her too? So first kiss, first staking. It's a Summers' life.

She reached to twist her hair into a ponytail, snagging the elastic off her wrist to do so. Once her hair was out of the way, she looked at the mounds surrounding her like Saxon burial groupings, and she had been hanging out with the Scoobies to pull that image out of nowhere. Wow, she'd managed to organize the pile of clothes that had been as tall as her sister. Good thing she'd got to it before it hit her height; she'd have never made it out alive. The sheets alone were up to her knees.

She had to tackle the stained pile. Blood, demon goop--which was easier to clean than the grease from Buffy's Doublemeat uniforms--and other stains that she was pretty sure Buffy didn't want her to know about yet. Yup, definitely requiring pre-soakage here.

Maybe that's what they needed? Some down time to re-calibrate? Tara and Willow were busy with the "re-calibration" as she swapped out a washing load into the dryer. Thanks to Nerd-o-vision, she now had the missing pieces. After she was finished here, she'd drop by Spike's. Make sure he knew what he'd done.

Her guidance counselor--the real one; she'd doubled checked--had talked about not complaining about her situation without taking responsibility for it. Owning up to mistakes, like her shoplifting, and then making amends.

It looked like the whole gang had been busy making mistakes, but maybe it could all come clean like the wash. Maybe they were just starting to make things better.


End file.
